With new design hotels and a lively beachfront scene, Uruguay’s Maldonado coast has never been more alluring

Blessed with a mild, Mediterranean-like climate and a chic, cosmopolitan energy, Punta del Este and its neighboring beachside towns along Uruguay’s Maldonado coast have been a jet-set favorite since the 1950s—Latin America’s answer to Saint-Tropez or the Hamptons. Habitués call the whole area Punta and tout its nightlife, pristine beaches, gaucho-country ranches, and big-sky landscapes of rolling, forested hills. “There’s a low-key vibe, but it’s very sophisticated. Like St. Barts but with less pressure,” says New York interior designer John Barman, an enthusiastic visitor.

Accommodations along the Atlantic coastline stretching from downtown Punta del Este to trendy José Ignacio, a laid-back fishing village that’s become the epicenter of barefoot-boho cool, tend more toward private homes than grand hotels. But in the past 12 months, the opening of a pair of five-star lodgings, Playa Vik and the Fasano Las Piedras, both by noted Latin American architects, has given the scene a shot of design-world buzz (with more on the horizon: a Setai Group resort is under construction in José Ignacio).

Meanwhile, well-heeled Brazilians, Europeans, and Americans continue to buy up homes, fueling a local real-estate boom, and wealthy Argentines are opening wineries, organic–olive oil estates, and dairy farms crafting artisanal cheeses and dulce de leche. The peak social season, from Christmas to mid-January, is quick and frenzied—a whirl of rosé-soaked lunches and glamorous cocktail parties—but both before and after, a leisurely calm prevails here, with the warmth lingering through March. Just in time for the start of Uruguay’s summer, AD paid a visit to sample the many charms Punta has to offer.